A Seat at the Table

Saturday morning I was elected to the Executive Committee of the 38,000-member State Bar of Georgia.  It will be an interesting transition from outsider iconoclast on the 150-member Board of Governors that meets four times a year to having a place at the table on the 14-member Executive Committee that meets monthly, with serious responsibility for helping set priorities, programs and budgets. 

I hope to continue to think “outside the box,”  examine all issues with a fresh eye, and view spending with the skinflint tendencies that I often apply in my own life and practice. 

Regarding “skinflint” tendencies, my assistant is often appalled at the cheap motels I choose to stay in during business trips, but I know I can sleep as well in a $49 room as in a $200 room.  And a $89 seat in the back of the plane gets there as soon as a $400 seat in first class.  When I spoke at a trial lawyers seminar in New Orleans last month, and mentioned in passing the amount of litigation expense incurred in a case where we got a $2.3 million verdict, a lawyer from California came up to me afterward, amazed at how little I had spent.  Hey, it’s my money.  I hope  treat my colleagues’ dues money as if it were my money.

The Shigley Law Firm  represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules in each state. Ken Shigley was designated as a “SuperLawyer” in Atlanta Magazine and one of the “Legal Elite” in Georgia Trend Magazine. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Liability Institute and former chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute. He particularly focuses on cases arising from truck wrecks and accidents (tractor trailers truck wrecks, semi truck wrecks,18 wheeler truck wrecks, big rig truck wrecks, log truck wrecks, dump truck wrecks.